


Yeah, Everything Goes Away

by lantia4ever



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Banter, First Meetings, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Humor, IronStrange Week 2019, Light Angst, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 15:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18897895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantia4ever/pseuds/lantia4ever
Summary: When Tony meets their resident Doctor turned Wizard, the man is an instant puzzle to him - not one he wouldn't be keen on piecing together. But of course the universe throws him a tantalizing mystery only to take it away just hours later. Who would have thought their first day would also be the last?And who would have thought last didn't have to belastat all.IronStrange Week 2019 May ~ Day 1 - Last Day Together





	Yeah, Everything Goes Away

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [是的，一切都会远去](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19060828) by [bunayou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunayou/pseuds/bunayou)



> Hello IronStrangers! 
> 
> Here's a little something for May's IronStrange Week, organized by the amazing peeps from IronStrange Haven at Tumblr&Discord. 
> 
> I'm kinda down the angst hole with my Big Bang fic and my ongoing wips are also taking a turn for the angsty so...yeah. This is an Endgame not-compliant zone. In fact, all my fics will probably be because I am forever doomed to live in denial. And it'll be worth it :'D
> 
> Inspired by and the included verses are from my all-time favorite song by Radical Face - Always gold. 
> 
> Enjoy and spread the IronStrange love this week! <3 I still can't believe how many fics there are now; this time last year there were a couple hundred. I mean, wow. Look at that beauty number now <3

_All my life I've never known where you've been,_

_There were holes in you,_

_The kind that I could not mend._

 ~

Most nights, Tony can’t sleep. It’s never been his thing, really. Not since Afghanistan. Not since New York. Not since the teenage mutant ninja witch showed him the end of the world.

Now that the end of the world has pretty much happened, there are even less reasons for him to entertain the thought of sleeping.

What for?

So he can dream of dust and tears and the purple son of a bitch laughing in his face as he makes his worst nightmare come true?

It doesn’t get any worse – waking up from a nightmare only to realize the nightmare is in fact reality.

Why bother sleeping then. To rest? He will have all eternity to do that in about a week.

Only he won’t. He knows he won’t. So instead of sleeping he sits in the cockpit staring into the spreading vastness of space and the accursed knowledge keeps him awake.

Sure – they ran out of options here. Along with fuel, food and soon also water and oxygen. But he won’t get to rest. He won’t get to die and join that half of the universe in the afterlife.

He knows that because _there was no other way_.

The sentence might as well be looping in his head like some torturous mantra hell-bent on driving him insane…only it’s not. His brain latches onto it like a lifeline and instead of it driving him nuts, it keeps him going.

Pretty impressive – for a simple sentence said to him by a man he’s basically _just met_.

A man that just hours prior to that called him a douchebag, _attacked_ him with his cape, winked at him in the middle of an alien crisis and told him he would gladly sacrifice him and Peter both just to protect his precious stone if it comes down to it.

As far as first meetings go, this was by far the wildest one.

As far as last meetings go, it takes every cake that ever caked.

That’s how Tony knows this is not it. Not by a long shot. He might have just met the man but he immediately got to know the two sides of him that matter the most.

The Doctor “I will sacrifice you and the kid to protect the Time stone” Strange Wizard.

And the Also Doctor “Spare his life and I’ll give you the stone” Strange Wizard.

Given some of Tony’s so called _friends_ , he’s probably the worst judge of character ever but he’s willing to gamble on the fact that Strange is not an idiot nor a gigantic walking contradiction of himself.

So he probably didn’t give Thanos the Time stone to save Tony’s life just so Tony can then suffocate somewhere in space weeks later. Whatever he saw in his magicky simulation preview made him do this.

 _There was no other way_.

Unless something went horribly, horribly wrong, Tony won’t be able to rest anytime soon. Even if he somehow could.

If something _did_ go horribly wrong, he’ll make sure to berate the damn wizard about it the second he gets his ghostly hands on him.

Until then, he will keep on clinging to that sentence, clinging to life and clinging to hope…wrapping himself in a fluffy blanket of the knowledge that this is the only way to win.

That _he_ can still turn this around. Somehow. He’ll figure that out once they get back to Earth. _Somehow_.

And they will. There is no other way because the wizard said so.

 ~

_And I heard you say, right when you left that day._

_"Does everything go away?"_

_Yeah, everything goes away._

 ~

“So here’s a bold idea,” Tony opens up with, sneaking up on Strange in the Sanctum’s library. “Next time you’re in charge of plan A, how about you _tell us what the plan is_ before you play the gone with the wind card?”

Strange nearly drops the book he’s been peacefully reading and then just stares at Tony with widened eyes, speechless.

“What?” Tony reels back a bit. “Too soon? To be fair, it’s been months for us so I can’t help it.”

“How did you get in here?” the wizard blurts out, still stunned.

“Oh Wong’s been teaching me tricks. Not magic tricks…but I’ve been hanging around here since waking up from a coma, eating ten Cheese burgers and throwing a V-phone at Rogers’s face. Had plenty of time to figure out this place’s secrets. Like…how to sneak up on unsuspecting sorcerers.”

“Wong,” he states, his expression turning into disbelieve.

“Yeah. I told him I’ll bring Beyoncé back from the dead and he declared himself my servant for life.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he rolls his eyes. “Fate of the universe hanging in the balance and he - ”

“And he stepped up, don’t even. He kept your merry band of weed tea-drinkers in check and totally helped me misuse the portals in every way imaginable to serve my evil masterplans. He’s way cooler than you.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Speaking of you, I’ve changed my mind. You’re just not going to devise any plan A’s from now on. Ever.”

Strange sighs, sitting back in the old-ass armchair. “If I told you what was supposed to happen, then it wouldn’t happen,” he tells him, sounding every bit as exhausted as Tony’s been feeling for months.

“Oh pffffffffffffffffft. You could have been super elaborate and say _everything_ that was supposed to happen and I would have just made it happen. You’ve got eidetic memory and all that, surely you remembered.”

“I didn’t see every detail and even if, I still wouldn’t have told you. There was - ”

“No other way, yes. I would have preferred a simple _everything’s gonna turn out just fine_ but if I’ve learnt anything about wizards these past few weeks, it’s that they’re cryptic as fuck. So…thanks anyway? I guess?”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” he breathes out into a whisper, successfully stopping Tony’s brain functions for the second time since they’ve met.

The same expression, the same tone of voice, the same look of absolute devastation. That was Titan though. Titan was months ago. Titan’s in the past and it better stay there forever and ever.

This won’t do.

“I’m sorry for - ”

“I’m not.”

“Wh…what?”

“I’m not….sorry. For hunting your wizard ass into space, fighting the purple grape, losing to the purple grape, having my worst nightmares come true, withering away for weeks in space with an angry murder robot lady, falling into a coma, staying here for weeks listening to Wong talk smack about you, then saving half of the universe and I’m most definitely not sorry for throwing that phone into Rogers’s face no matter how many times Carol tells me to apologize. I…might be a liiiittle bit sorry for almost projectile-vomiting those ten burgers in his face right after that but I’m standing my ground for now. Unapologetic.”

“Oh…kay?” Strange breaks through the devastated look with unbridled confusion. “I…”

“And _you_ made that happen, asshole, so if I hear one more sorry in here I will yeet that big Pot of Cosmos or whatever at you,” he grins, looking around to find it. “Where is that damn thing anyway?”

Strange closes his mouth, his face softening into something…new. Tony can work with new.

“It’s in the lobby, remember?” he clears his throat, watching Tony with a focus that nearly makes him squirm underneath it.

“Uhhh, no it’s not. I used it as a trash can for my doodles when I was brainstorming.”

That intense gaze suddenly turns into a scowl. “You did _what_?!”

“It’s the only clean bowl-shaped object in this haunted house. There’s that glowing chalice too, but I already used that for toxic waste…turns out it disintegrates whatever you throw into it…or out of it, actually.”

“ _You did what_?!” he repeats with a double-take.

There, much better. Almost back to that witty asshole doctor he met that day in the park.

“Don’t worry, doc. I didn’t melt anyone’s face off with it. Yet.”

“Oh _good_. I’m glad you decided to use the two most powerful relics in the Sanctum as office utensils,” he pouts, narrowing his eyes at Tony.

“Wait till you see what I’ve done to the kitchen,” Tony smirks and after months… _months…_ he feels like the gigantic boulder of Titan, death and stress is finally beginning to crumble.

“For fu…Wong! What did you let Stark do to the kitchen?!” he calls into the silence of the Sanctum.

“And we’re back to Stark now? Interesting. Alright. Wong is not here by the way. Beyoncé’s got a revival concert – if you know what I mean – and I just happened to have VVIP tickets. A small thanks for keeping up with my insane ass over the past months. So. What about you?”

“Me?”

“What do _you_ fancy for saving half of the universe?”

“All I did was watch us fail for fourteen million different times,” he shakes his head, looking away.

“Fourteen million six hundred and what, five? Phew. That’s a lot of times to…watch. Us. Fail, I mean. And then succeed. Don’t sell yourself too short, you’ve got at least fifteen percent of the credit here.”

“Fif… _fifteen_?!” he raises his eyebrows, the few loose strands of his hair flaring about in the fake wind.

“You can bargain up to thirty…four. Thirty-four. I’m always open for negotiations.”

“Thirty-four, oh my. Well let me tell you, Mister Stark, that bargaining is my personal specialty. So I’m going for at least sixty.”

“Now _that’s_ a bold thought, doc. Wong told me about your bargaining shenanigans. I do hope you realize there’s not a single dimension out there in which you could annoy _me_ into giving up.”

Instead of following up on the banter, Strange smiles. Not a smirk or a grin – just a smile. Pure and simple. _New_. “No. There really isn’t. I’ve seen fourteen million and you giving up wasn’t part of any single one.”

“Damn straight,” he dares to return the smile, fearing he might have already forgotten how to come up with one himself. “Guess you’re gonna have to up your game, wizard,” he winks and spins around to leave like the diva he is.

“Oh you’re on, Stark.”

“Keep calling me that and I will turn this library into a Beyoncé shrine,” he looks over his shoulder just in time to see Strange stand up, straightening into his impressive height, the Cloak fluttering around him.

“Keep threatening my Sanctum and I will magic every single StarkPhone in existence into a V.”

“Oooooh, Wong wasn’t kidding about you bargaining dirty. I’ll allow that too. See you around. Stephen,” he adds, enjoying the vast array of new emotions on the other man’s face before heading back out.

“You know where to find me.”

Tony chuckles giving him a last little wave without looking back and disappears into the hall.

As far as first post-apocalyptic meetings go – with a positive forecast of more meetings just sans the apocalypse to come – it wasn’t that bad either.

First and far from last.

~

_But I'm gonna be here till forever,_

_So just call when you're around._

_~_


End file.
